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09/22/2022

Board Spotlight: The Value of Serving Your Clients

By: Ryan White, CPYB, YBAA Board Member, Marine Concepts Yacht Sales

Our industry, like many, has experienced ebbs and flows over the past number of years, along with a lot of change. With the increased interest in boating, the supply chain issues, limited inventory, and continued inflation in prices, it is more important than ever to keep your clients’ best interests at the forefront of everything you do. And equally important, is maintaining good working relationships with your fellow yacht brokers, boat yard and service vendors, marine surveyors, and others that help us get our jobs done on a daily basis. This can at times be a challenge in the current environment, and when consider some of the recent hot topics of discussions amongst us lately. 

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Things like co-brokerage obligations, dual agency opportunities, low inventory levels, and the ever-increasing price points being paid for boats of all types and vintage. All of these contribute to making it harder to find your clients good boats for the right money, as well as good listings with reasonable owners. When you have this type of dynamic, and are collaborating with people, there can be many things we run across that can make our jobs harder.  After all this is a business that is very people driven, involves a good bit of emotion, and typically can be very personal for some clients.

As a Professional Yacht Broker, these conditions bring to light all kinds of situations that must be navigated, and managed in the appropriate ways with our clients, as well as our peers in fellow yacht brokers, yards, service facilities, and more.  And we all know that it is our clients’ best interests that are on the forefront of our obligations in all cases and is also always best to work with your clients in a fully transparent fashion with everything.   While the relationship with the client is a very vital and important one, it is also helpful to have good working relationships with your fellow brokers, as well as vendors, marinas, marine surveyors, technicians, boat yards, marine lenders and insurance agents, and other facets of the industry that help us facilitate our deals while supporting our clients. These relationships can mean the difference in a smooth, efficient, and successful deal for everyone, and when you maintain good working relationships with our peers, and other industry professionals. And in the same manner that it can be helpful, it can also create huge hurdles for us, which in turn means our clients, if we have not maintained good relationships with these key people that we need to be able to work with on a frequent basis.

It is extremely important to not take any of the decisions we are task with making lightly, and always think about the client’s best interests first! Do not forget how important relationships are, from the ones with our clients, to fellow brokers, and the many other industry professionals that help us get our jobs done each day, year in and year out. It is always good to keep in mind that people typically do business with people they like and trust. Our clients often times are family, good friends, or new friends we meet through referrals and helping them with their boating needs. Our jobs really are very rewarding, and some of the best jobs in the world when approached the right way.

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